"Judge Not" is
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
's first recorded single, recorded at
Federal Studios released on
Leslie Kong
Leslie Kong (20 December 1933 – 9 August 1971) was an influential Chinese-Jamaican reggae producer.
Career
Leslie and his two older brothers Cecil and Lloyd ran a restaurant, ice cream parlour and record shop called Beverley's in Orange Stre ...
's
Beverley's Records
Beverley's was a Jamaican record label (1961–1971) owned by the Chinese Jamaican record producer Leslie Kong. Beverley's was essential to the development of ska and rocksteady into reggae. The label launched the careers of Jimmy Cliff and ...
in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
in
1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...
and on
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
in the UK the following year. With a
ska
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...
beat, Marley has a youthful voice, as it was his first recorded song.
Headley Bennett
Felix Headley Bennett OD (29 May 1931 – 21 August 2016), also known as Deadly Headley, was a Jamaican saxophonist who performed on hundreds of recordings since the 1950s.
Biography
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Bennett attended the Alpha Boys ...
performed saxophone on this recording.
Though "Judge Not" failed to achieve much success, Marley was not discouraged and continued to record music. "Judge Not" was re-released in the ''Songs of Freedom'' album in 1992 as well as other compilations. The song was also covered by
Sublime, and can be found on the box set ''
Everything Under the Sun
''Everything Under the Sun'' is a 2006 box set of rarities from the band Sublime. It is composed in large part of tracks that can be found on previously released bootleg albums. The collection features material from throughout the band's caree ...
''.
The song is about morality, and may have been based on the Biblical quote "
Judge not lest ye be judged". Some of the song lyrics are paraphrased in the background vocals of the later Marley hit "
Could You Be Loved
"Could You Be Loved" is a 1980 song by Jamaican reggae band Bob Marley and the Wailers. It was released as the first single from their twelfth and last album, ''Uprising (Bob Marley and the Wailers album), Uprising'' (1980), and is also included ...
".
References
Bob Marley songs
1962 songs
Songs written by Bob Marley
1962 debut singles
Song recordings produced by Leslie Kong
Songs based on the Bible
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